Congratulations Al and the IPCC
There is an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that addresses something that has confused me for a while. In Climate-change apathy driven by fear, resentment, columnist Jay Bookman explains:
Climate change poses a myriad of difficult challenges — scientific, political, economic and technological. But more important than any of that, it poses a moral challenge. It asks whether we are so bound to our own comfort, so resistant to any suggestion of slight sacrifice, that we will risk condemning future generations to a profoundly diminished planet.
For a disturbing number of people, the answer has been yes. Over the past two decades, so-called skeptics have fended off action against global warming by taking a series of fallback positions, abandoning one line when it proves indefensible only to take up another.
“Global warming isn’t real,” they said at first. Next came, “Well, it might be real but we can’t prove mankind has anything to do with it,” followed by “OK, it’s probably real and mankind is probably driving it, but hey, there’s really nothing we can do to stop it. Party on!”
The mind-set behind that willful blindness isn’t complicated, and in fact makes a certain amount of sense. Skeptics fear that if they acknowledge manmade climate change, they also acknowledge the need for government regulation, mandated conservation and alternative energy sources, all of which they oppose for ideological reasons. In their world view, such things would be larger evils than rising oceans, lengthy droughts and mass extinctions.
There’s also a strong degree of political resentment driving global warming denial. Newt Gingrich, for example, is a rare conservative who admits that climate change is manmade, that “the evidence is sufficient that we should move to the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon.” Yet when news broke of the Nobel decision, even Gingrich snarled that “it’s perfectly appropriate for Gore to win the Nobel Prize because it only goes to very left-wing people who are critical of America.”
That seemingly well educated people would equate concern for the future of the human species, and much of life on Earth as we know it, with being “left-wing people who are critical of America”, and we see the same hyperbole here in Australia, astounds me. What could be more patriotic than wanting to ensure the long-term viability of your country, your planet? Yes the USA is the greatest contributor to global warming and yes the western lifestyle is insanely affluent, and yes we in the so-called developed world need to cut-down a little. But no this is not a left-wing position. It’s not anti-American, un-Australian, anti-capitalist.
The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging you have a problem. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. It was entirely appropriate for the Nobel Committee to award Mr Gore and the IPCC with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize and congratulations all-round. Gore, no matter what your politics may be, has done more to raise awareness about global warming than any other single human being alive. He was worked tirelessly in his quest to save the world.
The path of the hero is often lonely, often unrewarded; so it’s great that his work has been recognised. The IPCC too is fully deserving of this award. Thousands of scientists from all over the world, the USA and Australia included, have worked hard extracting the facts from the fictions. The truth from the industry spin. Congratulations to you all, and thank you. — DS
Technorati Tags: Al Gore, climate change, global warming, IPCC, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize, politics
